Thread by @dwallacewells

A very thorough, vivid ominous read of the leaked I.P.C.C. report and its implications for Europe. A thread (1/x) politico.eu/article/how-cl…

"The scientists warn that billions of people are at risk of chronic water scarcity, tens of millions exposed to hunger and places near the equator will experience unsurvivable heat, unless steps are taken to build up defenses against climate shocks and cut emissions fast."

"During la canicule, the heat wave of 2003, European cities cooked their people. Something like 80,000 people died. Under any future warming scenario, a summer like 2003 will be disturbingly normal."

"At 1.5 degrees of warming, around one in every five people in the EU and U.K. will experience similar heat in any given year. At 3 degrees, that rises to more than half the population."

"The heat is literally maddening. Italian researchers found a strong link between psychiatric emergencies and daily temperature. Suicides doubled in Moscow during a heat wave in 2010."

"In Madrid, incidents of domestic violence and women being murdered by their partners jump when the temperature goes over 34 degrees. Hot nights bring climate insomnia."

"At 3C, 200 million Europeans, not only in the south, but many in the north and the U.K., will live at high risk of heat stress. Without rapid changes to the built environment, the EU says extreme heat could kill 95,000 Europeans every year—more than 30 times the current rate."

"At 2C, 9% of Europe’s population may be competing over inadequate water supplies. In Southern Europe, the IPCC draft warns, more than a third of the population will have less water than they need. At 3C, regions suffering from droughts in Europe could double from 13% to 26%."

"The areas bordering the Mediterranean will be hardest hit, with the proportion of land regularly experiencing droughts expanding from 28% to 49% in the most extreme cases."

"Dry spells there would also last longer — nearly half of every year, up from two months today. Some parts of the Iberian Peninsula could experience drought for more than seven months every year."

"The loss of rain will make it harder to grow many staple crops in Southern Europe. Farmers will see traditional crops flee north ahead of the advancing Sahara, which is already jumping the Mediterranean Sea."

"Under extreme warming, southern wheat production collapses by as much as half. Even at 1.5C it will be near impossible to grow maize across much of Spain, France, Italy and the Balkans without irrigation. In a cultural catastrophe for Italy, the best tomatoes might be German."

"Farmers outside the southern desiccation zone might be entering a gilded era. As temperatures rise, other parts of the world that were once productive — including Punjab, the Middle East, Africa’s Sahel and Southeast Asia — will be growing less and less of anything."

"Global supply will be squeezed, increasing food prices that deliver an apocalypse windfall to Northern Europe. Southern agriculture will be dying on the vine, even as farmers in Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands cash in."

"Projections this century suggest most parts of Europe will experience up to 35% more extreme rainstorms in the winter, particularly in the north. Past 1.5C, floods could become an annual problem for about 5 million Europeans, the IPCC says, rather than once a century."

"Researchers at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control expect chikungunya will spread in Europe as the temperature warms. Alongside will come dengue fever and West Nile virus."

"Similar to mosquitoes, the range of ticks carrying encephalitis and Lyme disease is expected to creep northward into Scandinavia (although it’s likely to become too hot for them in the south) and into higher altitude Alpine regions."

"In 2020, the European Commission published a report that found the economic impact of climate change would be several times larger in the south than in the north — mostly because of heat-related deaths."

"Between 2000 and 2015, the IPCC draft says, Europe lost $300 billion every year because of climate change. At 3 degrees, the report warns, 'economic losses for Europe are multiple times larger.'"

"Unlike cyclical downturns, the climate deficit will happen every year. At 2C, that will be a damaging reality the north will have to bear. But in the south, which is already struggling with the debt limits enforced by Brussels, it will be a permanent economic handbrake." (x/x)